A HUGE money-laundering operation which funnelled £50m from cocaine sales on the streets of Britain into the pockets of Colombian drug cartels has been smashed, it was revealed yesterday.

A HUGE money-laundering operation which funnelled &#xA3;50m from cocaine sales on the streets of Britain into the pockets of Colombian drug cartels has been smashed, it was revealed yesterday.

The gang operated through corrupt bureaux de change, couriers and complex electronic money transfers between accounts in the UK, the Isle of Man, the US and Colombia.

Thirteen people were convicted and jailed for a total of 60 years following a three-year Customs and Excise investigation, codenamed Uproar, into the biggest scam of its kind so far uncovered.

Reporting restrictions were lifted at Kingston Crown Court, south London yesterday after the final defendant Juan Manuel Salgado, 50, a Colombian-born naturalised British citizen, pleaded guilty to laundering &#xA3;2.3m and was sentenced to five years.

Salgado, of Beaconsfield Road, Ealing, west London ran the Latin Linkup bureau de change in Camden, north London where undercover officers saw "dirty" cash being changed into high denomination dollar bills ready to be taken back to Colombia.

Over three years the launderers, who never had any contact with drugs themselves, "cleaned" the proceeds from more than 2,500 kilos (5,500lbs) of cocaine sold in the UK.

Luis Edwardo Hurtado, 39, another Colombian-born naturalised British citizen, owned the World Express bureau de change in Camberwell, south London and used a network of runners to collect money from drug traffickers.

It was moved around the streets of the capital in rucksacks, holdalls and plastic carrier bags before being changed, hundreds of thousands of pounds at a time, at the bureaux.

Large numbers of different money couriers were used in the operations and all those had no records.

A Customs source said, "They were very aware and very anti-surveillance.

"We've all seen French Connection with people jumping on and off trains and I'm sure they had seen the film."